A while aho, reader Stringer Bell suggested we discuss corruption here on the blog. What are the origins of corruption? Why do immigrants from extremely corrupt societies sometimes bring or try to bring their corruption with them to their new country (Russian – speaking immigrants are a great example) while immigrants from other, equally corrupt countries become extraordinarily law – abiding upon emigration (immigrants from India, for instance)?
I’ve been thinking about this fascinating question, and here is what I’ve got for now.
What is corruption? When do people resort to bribery, nepotism, and dishonesty? When do you personally feel the need to lie?
Aside from the rare cases of actual sociopathy, people don’t lie just for the hell of it. I don’t believe that the absolute majority of people enjoys unmotivated lying. Those of us who lie (rarely or all the time) only do this when we don’t believe we can achieve our goals in any other way.
Widespread corruption in any given society is a sign that its members don’t believe that this society is working. They cheat, bribe and prevaricate because they have no faith in the mechanisms of their society working in a way that is fundamentally fair and reliable.
Some people believe that the society which doesn’t work is only their own society. When they emigrate, they are open to the possibility of participating in a society that does work without corruption.
However, there are also people who have lost faith in the possibility of any society ever being able to function. After they emigrate, they don’t give themselves a chance to see if their new home does work without corruption. Their view of any society, of society as a concept has become so cynical that they don’t even contemplate a possibility of something different.
Here is what I’ve got so far. Please share your insights on the subject.
Clarissa's Blog 
What about the possible differences among the kinds of people who immigrate? May be, many Indians feel more sure in their abilities to win in a fair competition, while some Russians believe they will definitely fail without cheating. Losing faith in yourself, not in society.
If my supposition is true, the question rises whether those beliefs reflect reality and why, and if not – what led to their formation.
You once talked about USSR making people more passive and afraid of capitalist competition. It could lead to lack of faith in one’s powers.
Btw, Israel is not a corrupt country, and 1 million of FSU immigrants in the 90ies hasn’t changed it for worse. May be, you saw different kinds of Russian immigrants in USA. Imo, on average, immigrants to America are different from those to Israel. For instance, my family would’ve stayed in Ukraine if not Israel and its huge help to new immigrants to adjust to the new country. America doesn’t help new immigrants this way, doesn’t invite every Jew, including old people and poor people w/o knowledge of the country’s language.
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“1 million of FSU immigrants in the 90ies hasn’t changed it for worse. May be, you saw different kinds of Russian immigrants in USA. Imo, on average, immigrants to America are different from those to Israel.”
– Given how many of the Russian-speaking immigrants in the US have passed through Israel on their way here, I fail to see the difference.
“America doesn’t help new immigrants this way, doesn’t invite every Jew, including old people and poor people w/o knowledge of the country’s language.”
– There is enormous social assistance to these immigrants in Canada, yet they are as corrupt and dishonest as they are anywhere. Did I tell you about the student back at McGill who tried to bribe me?
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Also, remember this?
I have dozens of similar stories, dozens.
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\\ – Given how many of the Russian-speaking immigrants in the US have passed through Israel on their way here, I fail to see the difference.
Theoretically, my idea still could be true in part. Since those immigrants are a self-selected group from all immigrants to Israel, they may not represent an average Israeli immigrant. 🙂
\\ – There is enormous social assistance to these immigrants in Canada
My relatives never heard the word “Canada”, when deciding on immigration. It was either Israel or Germany. Has Canada begun accepting immigrants afterwards? I am not sure it would’ve accepted my family and helped us half as much as Israel had. Why would it?
\\ – Russian-speakers were as corrupt back in the Socialist USSR, so I don’t this is about capitalism at all.
You talked how USSR was a dog-eat-dog society in the worst way. One had to bribe, buy on the black market, etc.
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“My relatives never heard the word “Canada”, when deciding on immigration. It was either Israel or Germany. Has Canada begun accepting immigrants afterwards? I am not sure it would’ve accepted my family and helped us half as much as Israel had. Why would it?”
– Oh yes, there is a very strong program for the support of Jewish immigrants to Canada. I didn’t qualify (nor did I try, to be honest) but my parents and sister emigrated through that program. As a result, my emigration case took 2 years at the Canadian Embassy while theirs took 2 months. Of course, the program is also extraordinarily helpful after immigration. As you probably realize, many (if not most) people who emigrate through that program are not really Jewish. The program doesn’t verify Jewishness as strictly as Israel does.
“Theoretically, my idea still could be true in part. Since those immigrants are a self-selected group from all immigrants to Israel, they may not represent an average Israeli immigrant.”
– Now you are making even yourself laugh. 🙂
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\\ Of course, the program is also extraordinarily helpful after immigration.
I don’t think this program would welcome old grandmothers with single mothers of several children. With zero money and no English / French. My grandmother got money from social security till she died (she hasn’t earned pension in Israel, and Ukraine pays zero in such cases, unlike Russia). My mother could afford not to work, while she was studying language at a half-year course and then went to professional courses.
Here is a list of benefits to Israeli immigrants:
Click to access Aliyah_Aliyah%20Benefits_chart_pdf.pdf
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The program is very welcoming and supporting towards the elderly. I know several immigrant elderly cuoples who were given really great housing and huge benefits. people are paid to learn the language (all people, not just Jewish immigrants). As I explained before, the national philosophy of Quebec is that if people don’t want to work, it’s society’s obligation to provide them with a good standard of living.
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\\ – Now you are making even yourself laugh.
I seriously think that people who move from Israel to USA / Canada are not a random sample of Israeli immigrants.
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Yes, if they leave Israel, that’s a sign that they are total evildoers. But if they stay, it’s a sign they are amazing human beings.
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You talked about losing faith in society, and one could define it more precisely as different approaches to / understanding of the capitalist game. Based on experience in the home country, Indians may see capitalism as meritocracy, while for FSU immigrants it is “a dog-eat-dog world”. In a way, sometimes the latter are right. Even in America, big companies (sometimes) may afford to break law with impunity, while small people are punished for doing much less. SB recently linked to an article on the topic.
Also, could Russians (justly?) believe they experience a huge discrimination? Probably greater than against Indians? You mentioned how CVs with Russian names are immediately sent to the garbage bin. What about CVs with Indian names? You could claim this American behavior is just, but it could promote dishonesty in some immigrants. If you (believe you) aren’t given a fair chance, why not cheat?
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“You talked about losing faith in society, and one could define it more precisely as different approaches to / understanding of the capitalist game. Based on experience in the home country, Indians may see capitalism as meritocracy, while for FSU immigrants it is “a dog-eat-dog world”.”
– Russian-speakers were as corrupt back in the Socialist USSR, so I don’t this is about capitalism at all.
“Also, could Russians (justly?) believe they experience a huge discrimination? Probably greater than against Indians?”
– Russian-speakers are mostly white. Indian immigrants mostly aren’t. So who experiences greater discrimination?
“You could claim this American behavior is just, but it could promote dishonesty in some immigrants. If you (believe you) aren’t given a fair chance, why not cheat?”
– Russian-speakers tend to be perennially aggrieved in any society where they go.
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I’m convinced that once upon a time corruption was invented by talentless people. Those who didn’t want to better themselves, work hard for their goals and have real achievements, but just to be perceived as powerful, important, smart, etc. to get the same social and financial rewards as hard-working, talented people.
I’m a Hungarian immigrant living in the UK, and corruption was one of the main reasons I left my country. I’m an entrepreuneur in the technology sector, and in Hungary corruption (and incredibly high taxes, but that’s a different question) kills several small businesses, mainly those who want to operate in an honest way. Well, in 2013 Hungary was the 47th on the corruption list of Transparency International, while India was the 94th and Russia the 127th, so I know there are much worse places in the world, but it was still awful that I was surrounded by so many corrupt, petty-minded people who only held my business back. Not just entrepreuneurs were like that, but also many people in civil service jobs. They just waited to be bribed, that was the normal for them. Just like many doctors. And some officers in the tax office. At the local council. Almost everywhere. Of course not everybody is like that in Hungary, as there are also a lot of honest people (unfortunately usually in lower positions) who hate the whole thing but usually they just have to shut up if they want to keep their jobs. My business didn’t go bankrupt, but I was definitely fed up with the system.
Since I left last year, I don’t have to worry about corruption any more. It’s great as I’ve always wanted to run my business in a “clean” environment. Where I’m not called stupid and seen as a loser because I don’t want to cheat or bribe or anything. This way my new company is much more successful, because I don’t have to waste a lot of time to fight corruption that is embed in the system, to find normal partners or to think about creative ways to stay alive. Here the system works for me, and not against me, which is a huge advantage.
I don’t know much about the motivation of Indians, but they come from a comgpletely different background. The values of Eastern-European societies were greatly destroyed by communism. I think Indians are corrupt in their home countries because of poverty, while Eastern-Europeans because of the lack of trust in the state.
While I think western societies could better achieve transparency, recently I’ve began to perceive that here in Britain there’s another kind of corruption, more subtle, more harder to recognize, but it exists. I can’t write too much about it, as I don’t live here for so long, but I think it’s very interesting question that in parallel with the development of a society how corruption transforms and finds new, less obvious ways.
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“Since I left last year, I don’t have to worry about corruption any more. It’s great as I’ve always wanted to run my business in a “clean” environment. Where I’m not called stupid and seen as a loser because I don’t want to cheat or bribe or anything.”
– Hear, hear!!! This is exactly the same experience as the one I had. I realized that I was not going to be able to have any contact with people from my immigrant community when they started ridiculing me for not cheating on my taxes in Canada.
“The values of Eastern-European societies were greatly destroyed by communism. I think Indians are corrupt in their home countries because of poverty, while Eastern-Europeans because of the lack of trust in the state.”
– Exactly. I couldn’t agree more!
“While I think western societies could better achieve transparency, recently I’ve began to perceive that here in Britain there’s another kind of corruption, more subtle, more harder to recognize, but it exists. I can’t write too much about it, as I don’t live here for so long, but I think it’s very interesting question that in parallel with the development of a society how corruption transforms and finds new, less obvious ways.”
– This, too, is completely in line with my own experience. OK, are you me? 🙂 🙂
Thank you for this insightful comment!
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“This, too, is completely in line with my own experience. OK, are you me?”
Well, when I read about your narcissistic mother on this blog, I also thought the same 🙂
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I’m very glad you joined the blog! !
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Corruption is not researched or understood nearly enough.
All societies have some kind of corruption, the difference is in saturation (Russia, for example, is heavily saturated, Poland somewhat less so, Norway even less though there is corruption there too.
One thing that’s needed is a typology of corruption. The major distinction is corruption that doesn’t foul the environment as much (like Norway or Canada) and corruption that fouls everything it touches and keeps societies poor (like the Phillipines and India).
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I agree completely with the point on saturation. There is a difference between isolated cases of corruption in some societies and isolated cases of its lack in others.
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\\ in parallel with the development of a society how corruption transforms and finds new, less obvious ways
Could somebody give a few examples of those less obvious ways?
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For instance, I personally know 4 professors who got their jobs through nepotism (1 in a state university, 3 in private schools. ) Back in Ukraine, on the other hand, I never even contemplated going to grad school because I knew that acceptance was based solely on bribery and nepotism).
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\\ For instance, I personally know 4 professors
But this example is about the degrees of saturation, not about how to give bribes in a new, advanced way in a more honest society. I hoped to get some info about new subtle tricks. 🙂 May be, aglaonika will be able to help.
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El, I’m still in exploring mode, as I don’t live in the “West” for so long. I also think that nepotism is the most prevalent type of corruption in western societies. I think nepotism is not the degree of saturation, but one of the most basic type of corruption. Similar to bribe, just here you don’t pay with money, but with connections, but good connections usually make money sooner or later, so it’s basically the same. As far as I can see right now in Britain there are huge differences between the different social classes. The social mobility in the UK is one of the lowest in Europe. There are many positions, jobs, neighbourhoods, career paths, etc. which are available only for those who have the right connections and references. It’s not the characteristic of a real meritocracy. But we can neither call it purely corruption, as here nobody will tell it to your face that “If you pay me £5000 you will get this job or business opportunity or anything”. No. If you can’t prove you have the desirable background, you just don’t get it, and you won’t know why. They will smile and tell you “I’m really really sorry, but unfortunately there were more suitable applicants”. And that’s true in many cases. But if it was always true, the social mobility would be much higher. However maybe I’m wrong, I need more time to create a coherent view, as the way the British society works is still pretty new to me.
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\\ Yes, if they leave Israel, that’s a sign that they are total evildoers.
It could be a sign that they failed in Israel OR that they are more cynical people, not getting attached to the nation state of their people, which welcomed them with open arms. 🙂
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Getting attached to an imaginary community and its imaginary arms does not sound like a very psychologically healthy thing to do. I also had a group of imaginary friends but I outgrew them by the age of 6.
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\\ Getting attached to an imaginary community … I also had a group of imaginary friends but I outgrew them by the age of 6.
Don’t most people do the first but not the second? Are 99% unhealthy?
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Among my circle of colleagues and friends, declaring an attachment to a nation can only be done sarcastically. An educated person knows how such attachments are manufactured and for what purpose. You know that, too, because I harped on the subject long enough on this blog. 🙂
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This isn’t really a funny joke, unless maybe you are smoking ganja.
Two Zimbabweans are on a bicycle about 15 miles outside of Manchester. One
of the bike’s tires goes flat and they start hitching a lift back into
town. A friendly trucker stops to see if he can help, and the Zimbabweans
ask him for a ride.
He tells them he has no room in the trailer as he is carrying 20,000
bowling balls. The Zimbabweans put it to the driver that if they can manage
to fit into the back with their bike, will he take them back into town and
he agrees.
They manage to squeeze themselves and their bike into the back and the
driver shuts the doors and gets on his way. By this time, he is late and so
puts the hammer down and sure enough, a blonde cop pulls him over for
speeding.
The lady officer asks the driver what he is carrying, to which the driver
jokingly replies “Zimbabwean eggs.” The Blonde Lady Cop obviously does not
believe this so she wants to look in the trailer. She opens the back door
and quickly shuts it and locks it. She gets on her radio and calls for
immediate backup from as many officers as possible plus the Swat Team.
The dispatcher asks what emergency she has that require so many officers.
“I’ve got a Tractor-Trailer stopped with 20,000 Zimbabwean eggs in it. Two
have hatched and they have already managed to steal a bicycle!”
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\\ Among my circle of colleagues and friends, declaring an attachment to a nation can only be done sarcastically. An educated person knows how such attachments are manufactured and for what purpose.
You have written a post “Two Options for Jews” once. The above reply to me implies that every educated person would choose to “Forget Jewishness,” that only an ignorant fool can be a Zionist and choose Option 2.
I disagree. Btw, many European states have been quite mono-ethnic, that some recently chose to invite Muslim immigrants is their problem / choice / necessity / mistake in some cases.
I would also bet that many Israeli lit professors aren’t sarcastic about the matter, despite their education. And not because they are too foolish to be a professor.
Btw, what makes me angry here is the implied statement that Jews and only Jews should forget their nationality and/or religion (if they are truly educated people). Germans, French, etc. can have their nation states and preserve their culture, be proud of it. Christians and Muslims may remain so. But Jews? Only backward ones may think Israel is a worthy project.
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I can speak only for myself, but I, for one data point, have exactly the same attitude towards ALL states or wannabee states that think it is a good idea to build a state of one ethnic/linguistic/religious group on a territory populated by several ethnic/linguistic/religious groups. Israel just happens to be a somewhat extreme example of such a state…
There is nothing wrong with preserving any culture per se, the question is about the means to that end. For some people the ends justify any means, for some they do not. And in general, it is weird to demand from the representatives of group X that preserving culture of group Y should be the primary value for them, above preserving their own culture, or (for liberals/ progressives) above some supra-national values like individual’s freedom of choice.
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valter07, there is a two state solution. Palestinians will get one day their own Jew-free country (they would not have it any other way), where they will preserve their culture as much as they wish. Neither Palestinians nor Jews want to live in one state, and both groups are already “on the ground,” so your point doesn’t apply to the present or the future.
// other, equally corrupt countries become extraordinarily law – abiding upon emigration (immigrants from India, for instance)
May be, you haven’t seen a representative sample of Indian immigrants. I have just been reading about the development of an Indian underclass in Britain:
” the children of Indian immigrants are dividing into two groups: a segment that chooses the upward path, and a segment that chooses descent into the underclass.
Sometimes this division occurs within the very same family. For example, last week I met two prisoners of Indian origin, all of whose siblings had gone to college and become either professional or business people. Their brothers and sisters had chosen law, medicine, or commerce: they had chosen heroin, burglary, and the intimidation of witnesses. ”
http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_oh_to_be.html
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I agree with valter07, and I also want to add that a strong culture will preserve itself without any extra efforts on anybody’s part.
The Roman Empire has been dead for 1,500 years, yet its cultural prestige is still enormous. In the meanwhile, an existing enormous and rich country such as Russia is producing zero culture, none. (In case anybody suspects me of ultra-patriotism, Ukraine, the largest country in Europe, is also producing no culture.)
A tiny, barren, depopulated, pathetically poor Iberian Peninsula made its culture relevant and prestigious on a global scale, exporting it all over the world. And an enormous, rich and powerful Russian Empire didn’t do anything of the kind.
An enormous and rich Canada is really struggling to make an impact culturally that would be even remotely comparable to that of the tiny Italy.
Australia is occupying an entire lush and rich continent yet hasn’t managed to produce anything even remotely similar to the culture of the miserable Argentina that exists between one military dictatorship and another.
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I don’t think you understood my comment. My circle of acquaintances consists of Americans, Canadians, and Hispanics. They don’t express emotional attachments to their countries, not to Israel.
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Had to link 🙂
The Uses of Corruption
http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_3_oh_to_be.html
Relevant quote:
” Admittedly, corruption is a strange kind of virtue: but so is honesty in pursuit of useless or harmful ends. Corruption is generally held to be a vice, and viewed in the abstract, it is. But bad behavior can sometimes have good effects, and good behavior bad effects.
Where administration is light and bureaucracy small, bureaucratic honesty is an incomparable virtue; but where these are heavy and large, as in all modern European states, Britain and Italy not least among them, they burden and obstruct the inventive and energetic. Where bureaucrats are honest, no one can cut through their Laocoönian coils: their procedures, no matter how onerous, antiquated, or bloody-minded, must be endured patiently. Such bureaucrats can neither be hurried in their deliberations nor made to see common sense. Indeed, the very absurdity or pedantry of these deliberations is for them the guarantee of their own fair-mindedness, impartiality, and disinterest. To treat all people with equal contempt and indifference is the bureaucrat’s idea of equity.
In such circumstances, the use of personal influence or bribery by a petitioner at the bar of bureaucracy may actually represent an increase in efficiency. It would be better that the bureaucracy did not exist at all, of course; but it does exist and is unlikely soon to disappear. (My experience in Britain suggests that all official attempts to reduce bureaucracy actually increase it.) The man who can bribe or call upon the illicit influence of his brother-in-law is not obliged passively to await a decree from the bureaucratic Olympus: he retains some control over the situation (and also, therefore, some self-respect).
Where the state looms large in everyone’s life, a degree of corruption exerts a beneficial effect upon the character of the people. Only up to a point, of course: when the state is all-embracing and official corruption becomes total, both together stifle wealth creation, and general impoverishment results. In the end, the demonetarization of the economy ensues, as under communism. Italy never came near this stage, however, and Italian bureaucrats were astute enough not to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. The richer the society around them, the more they could themselves extract from it. What was good for business was good for them. (Officials in China’s relatively flourishing Guangdong province appear to have grasped this principle, too.) “
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“May be, you haven’t seen a representative sample of Indian immigrants. I have just been reading about the development of an Indian underclass in Britain:
” the children of Indian immigrants are dividing into two groups”
May be [sic] you need to understand the definition of the word ‘immigrant’. Children of immigrants are not immigrants.
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Thanks for the post, Clarissa. I wonder if someone can shed some light on why there’s more corruption in southern european countries than in their northern counterparts. Again, I’m talking about every day corruption (small bribes to government officials to get anything done) and not about high level corruption (lobbying).
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“Again, I’m talking about every day corruption (small bribes to government officials to get anything done) and not about high level corruption (lobbying).”
– Yes, that’s what I’m talking about in the post. In terms of Southern Europe, Spain and Portugal have had a state model until quite recently that wasn’t likely to elicit much trust from the citizenry. In Spain, the Transition to democracy was shrouded in so much lying, manipulation, and dishonesty that, again, there was no space for trusting the state.
Italy is slightly different in that its central problem is the extreme power of the family clan model. And the state hasn’t managed (or, it seems, even tried) to make itself more attractive than a clan.
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Throwing out some ideas that can hopefully clarify things.
Goals of corruption:
making an end run around meritocracy – often found in nepotism, phony ‘qualifications’ and the like
getting a bigger piece of a finite pie – esp. in cultures where the idea of the “limited good” is endemic, the only way to get more for yourself is to take from someone else (as opposed to societies where the common belief is that the pie can be grown so that everybody has more)
Reasons for corruption:
making an end run around a rational system (and/or one that should be transparent)
making an end run around an irrational system. This is an enduring legacy in Eastern Europe where almost every procedure created in the communist era was deeply dysfunctional. On the one hand, ignoring the system and breaking rules had to be done for anything to be accomplished and everyone did this on a daily basis, on the other hand, this leads long term to contempt for any official procedure (or the population simply loses the ability to distinguish between rational constraints and irrational constratins).
OF course all these things can interact.
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“immigrants from other, equally corrupt countries become extraordinarily law – abiding upon emigration (immigrants from India, for instance)?”
There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence about Indians in America indulging in what might be called extended nepotism. I’ve certainly run across complaints that as soon as an Indian in IT is put in a hiring position that a large majority new hires are from that person’s ethnic group and/or caste. I don’t have first hand evidence but I’ve had some second hand.
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Corruption in the US is commonplace. Arguably, it is less common at the Federal level due to the level of controls in place. A hot spot at the Federal level is the Federal corrections system.
The incidence of corruption is higher at the state level. A famous example was the Secretary of State for Illinois, Paul Powell, who had drives write checks for driver’s license renewals made out to him. Yes, he cashed them, and put the funds into his own account. He died in office, and the State only caught on when they found shoe boxes full of these checks under his bed.
Corruption is singularly widespread at the local level. In 2010, we learned that Bell, a city of 38,000 in California, was paying its mayor $800,000 per year. Bell is apparently favored by executives of Chinese companies; I don’t know if or how those facts might be related. New Orleans, most major cities in New Jersey, and Chicago are famous for it. The last elected mayor of Trenton, NJ, only served the first two years of his four year term, spending the rest of it in Federal prison. In cities and towns, trash pick-up, health inspectors and zoning are regularly suspect.
The US pointing the finger at anyone about corruption is rather amusing, sadly.
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